


Building on the Future

by Jack_of_All_Blades



Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII
Genre: F/M, Female Genesis Rhapsodos, Female Lazard, Genderbending, Minor Angeal Hewley/Lazard Deusericus, New Year's Eve, New Year's Fluff, Or How I Perceive Fluff, alternate universe - modern AU, yes I did do that
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-31
Updated: 2020-12-31
Packaged: 2021-03-10 22:01:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,367
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28460556
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jack_of_All_Blades/pseuds/Jack_of_All_Blades
Summary: “Now who’s living in a fantasy?”“It’s called happiness, Gen. You should try it sometime.”
Relationships: Angeal Hewley & Genesis Rhapsodos, Genesis Rhapsodos/Sephiroth
Comments: 2
Kudos: 9





	Building on the Future

**Author's Note:**

> I have no idea where I’m going with this one. I just wanted a modern au with some New Year’s flavor sprinkled in, and then it started to grow.
> 
> From this prompt: “Yes i’m out clubbing on new years. Please just pick me up!”

It was New Year’s Eve and she was standing in a snowdrift in a dress with long sleeves and a short skirt. The wind was beginning to pick up, throwing snow in her face but she didn’t feel it. Her anger was enough to keep her warm.

For a while, that is.

She guessed she should have seen it coming—normally she would have, and put to an end to the relationship herself. Genesis took pride in being the cutter of ties. So it had been a nasty surprise to be on the receiving end for once. Reno’s nonchalant dismissal had floored her.

Snowflakes were catching in her lashes. She was beginning to get cold, but she would stay out here out of spite. The bright shine of Loveless Avenue spread around her, alight with neon and streamers and firecrackers and everyone prepared to ring in the New Year. Couples walked past arm in arm, dressed in coats and scarves and a sickening aura of happiness. Behind her, she could hear the thrum of music from the club she’d just forcefully exited.

She had to get away from here.

Her fingers fumbled blindly in her purse for the outline of her PHS, hoping she hadn’t gotten so drunk that she’d left it in the bathroom or something. Because like hell she was going back into the club, not with what she’d just dealt with.

By the time Angeal picked up, she couldn’t feel her legs. Genesis thought she’d been smart when she’d picked out a pair of thigh-high leather boots, but apparently the Wutain lambskin was meant only for looks and not slogging through snowdrifts.

“ _Gen?_ ” He sounded groggy as though just woken up. She glanced at her PHS. 11:43. He hadn’t even made it to midnight. Angeal no longer held late hours, not with a baby around to disrupt what little sleep he had. She would have pitied her best friend if she hadn’t thought his kid was a terror. As expected.

“Hey, can you pick me up?”

“ _What?_ ” Her best friend was talking in mumbled whispers, probably trying not to wake up his wife. Genesis felt a pang of perverse satisfaction at robbing both of them of sleep. Served them right for being responsible adults.

“It’s New Year’s,” she began.

“ _I know that. What I want to know is why you’re calling me at, ah,11:45 and asking for a . . . a ride . . ._ ” Genesis could tell when his sleep-fogged brain began to connect the dots. His groan confirmed it. Another hot stab of anger lanced through her.

“You’re always the one telling me I shouldn’t be drinking and driving, all self-righteous about it,” she hissed. Gaia, with a few in her even _she_ could see how much of a bitch she could be. She rubbed her forehead, trying to stave off a migraine, the unholy offspring of alcohol and anger. “So. I’ve been drinking, but I’m not driving. Happy?”

“ _You’re out clubbing?_ ”

She instantly heard the moment when Angeal switched from ‘bemused friend’ to ‘overprotective, nagging mother hen’. She wasn’t sure if she wanted to hear that.

“Yes, I’m out clubbing on New Year’s Eve,” she snapped. “Yes, I know it’s fucking forty below or something and I don’t have a coat. Yes, I know who the responsible one is with a wife and a baby and house payments. The one who makes reasonable decisions.” It was painful to admit, but no one ever said truth was supposed to be easy. Anger was better than tears. “You’re the smart one, is that what you want to hear? Please just pick me up.” It came out more pitiful than she had intended and Genesis scrubbed the heel of her hand against her cheek. Those were definitely _not_ tears.

There was silence for a long drawn-out moment and Genesis thought the call had dropped. Or he’d hung up on her. Fuming, she contemplated chucking her PHS at a nearby streetlight, but then she heard Angeal groan again. Most likely sitting up in bed. “ _Where are you?_ ”

She sniffled a little, hoping her makeup hadn’t smeared too badly at its abuse—and now she was shivering. Great. “Loveless Avenue. The usual place.”

A sigh, a rush of static. “ _Hold tight, find someplace warm to wait. I’m coming to pick you up._ ” The line went dead and Genesis remained frozen in place.

She wasn’t sure how long she stood there. She stamped her useless Wutain boots against the snow-covered sidewalk and trying to ignore the freezing water seeping into the toes. She was getting too sober for this. She kept glancing down at her PHS, waiting for a message from Angeal. She could envision him muttering to a half-awake Lazard about his idiot best friend’s newest escapade, and Lazard’s smug superiority. After all, _she_ wasn’t the one out in the snow in a short dress, drunk and unable to—

Genesis was jerked out of her fuming at the approach of a party-goer. Her eyes fell on the theatre lights across the street, bright and golden and filled with too painful memories. But it was a night for pain, so why not torment herself just a little longer? She kept looking at it until the person paused beside her, snow crunching under their boots. Apparently they _weren’t_ passing by, like she’d hoped. For a sickening moment she thought Reno had followed her in some messed-up attempt at reconciliation. “Are you . . . all right?” A man’s voice, a smooth baritone. Definitely not Reno. Good, but also bad. Genesis was instantly on hyper alert. Maybe that early sobriety wasn’t necessarily a bad thing.

“Does it fucking look like I’m all right?” she snapped viciously. Just what she needed, some creep seeing an easy target and thinking this would be the best way to ring in the New Year, get a jump start on his resolution. She’d already had a shitty beginning to her own.

Genesis glanced angrily over at her unwanted companion, and realized she had to look _up_. Gaia, he was tall. It made it that much harder to talk to him. And it didn’t help that he was fucking gorgeous.

Neon lights caught in his long silver ponytail, a kaleidoscope of colours shifting and shimmering, drawing attention to his too-beautiful face. And yet she felt a kind of aversion. He looked too perfect to be human, even if it was marred by a frown. “No, you do not. Do you have a coat somewhere?”

Genesis narrowed her eyes at him. Yes she did, back in the club. But she wasn’t slinking back in there to see Reno’s sharp eyes and triumphant smirk. She still had enough pride to carry her through the next ten minutes or so and into the new year, coat or no. “What’s it to you?” she retorted, smearing tears and makeup with her hand. She felt like shit, might as well look it too. The stranger blinked, stiffening slightly.

And then he started to pull off his coat.

Genesis balked. “What the hell are you doing?”

He cocked his head like a cat, blinking slowly. “I . . . believe it’s proper etiquette for a man to offer his coat to a lady if she’s cold.”

She blinked.

She’d been called a lot of things in her life—whore, slut, easy, skank, others much worse—but never . . . never a lady. She didn’t know what to do with the warm fuzzy feeling that bubbled up inside her. All this from a stranger. _Get a grip_ , she hissed to herself. _You’re slightly drunk and freshly dumped and can’t you see he’s trying to take advantage of that?_

She politely told that part of her brain to kindly shut the fuck up.

When she said nothing more to dissuade him, he slung it over her shoulders, pulling it closed in the front, his hands quick and respectful. It was a heavy black and grey wool, an old-fashioned military chic that Genesis rather liked. It nearly swamped her, but she could no longer feel the cold wind cutting at her bare legs. And it was _warm_.

She pulled it closer around her, burrowing into the high collar. She snuck a glance at her new . . . friend? “Where’s your date?” Looking like that, he had to have one—right?

He looked adorably lost for a moment. “. . . I’m sorry?”

Genesis glanced up and down the teeming street as people gathered to watch the clock tower. “This is a couple’s spot during New Years,” she pointed out. “I doubt you’d be hanging around here without a date.”

His eyebrows rose. “The same could be said of you. Where is yours? Languishing somewhere waiting for you to come back?”

Genesis froze as she fingered the edges of his coat, smoothly covering her stumble by hoisting the coat further up her shoulders. Sneaking a glance at the silver-haired stranger, she realized he wasn’t fooled. His frown had only deepened in misplaced concern. Unlike Reno in every way. “He doesn’t care what I do,” she said flippantly.

“Careless as well as stupid,” he rumbled, lips thinning. Genesis’s jaw tightened at the judgment in his deep voice. What she did wasn’t his business, she didn’t need to be reprimanded for it. That was what she had Angeal for.

“It’s nothing worse than accosting women in the street,” she spat back.

“Are you trying to defend him?” He blinked down at her in mild surprise, the frown still in place. Genesis felt herself pause as she realized he’d been referring to _Reno_ , not to her. She stared up at him with a questioning look. He had the grace to look uncomfortable. “I apologize for approaching you like this if you feel that way. But regardless, my opinion still stands. If he was the cause for you coming out here, like _that_ , then you’re better off without him. You deserve better than someone cares so little for your personal welfare.”

The warmth was back, and any aversion she’d held towards him faded as abruptly as he’d appeared. There was a human heart beneath that statue-like exterior.

She started laughing, tension she hadn’t realized was there abruptly dissipating. The stranger frowned slightly. “I’m sorry. Did I miss something? I admit I may be crossing boundaries I shouldn’t.” And the best part was that he seemed completely genuine, and Genesis had learned to spot the fakers.

“Don’t tell me that you’re a closet romantic,” she laughed, flicking him a sideways glance. There was the faintest flush along his high cheekbones.

 _Gaia, he_ is _, isn’t he?_

He probably watched sappy chick flicks on Shinflix, curled up on a couch and dressed in flannel pjs.

She could easily picture it. And now Genesis had the odd desire to curl up beside him and do the same. Her crimson lips curled in a faint frown, her gaze dropping back to the slow traffic in front of them. He didn’t know her, know her reputation, know the reality of her life.

And yet here he was. Standing beside her in the snow, keeping her company. It probably helped that he was well over six foot, his sheer presence a deterrent for any carousers on the street who thought a slightly drunk woman in a skimpy dress was easy prey.

He even smelled good, Genesis thought as she burrowed her face into the high collar. Some kind of sharp cologne, like wood smoke and metal and magnolias.

Her PHS buzzed against her thigh and she pulled it out to read the message from Angeal. Genesis wasn’t quick enough to repress a pang of disappointment at the reminder that this was just a temporary acquaintance. Biting her lip, she texted back the address of a nearby coffee shop that was still open at this time of night. Her nameless knight stood beside her, a comforting presence beneath the shifting lights of the Avenue.

She soaked in the warmth of his coat a little bit longer, unwilling to part with it, but she eventually pulled it off her shoulders and handed it back to him. “I have a friend picking me up,” she said reluctantly.

His eyebrows furrowed in worry, and Gaia he looked adorable. “Are you sure?”

She smiled up at him—not one of her usual smirks, sharp and promising either a good time or pain depending on the situation, but a strangely soft one even she wasn’t sure what to do with. “I’m sure. You won’t see any articles about a woman being found in a melting snowdrift come springtime.”

He slung his long coat over his shoulders, buttoned up the front. “As long as you take care of yourself,” he said unsurely.

“I’ll be fine. I’ll be waiting for Angeal over there.” She jerked a thumb at the coffee shop, the windows bright with golden warmth. The cold was beginning to soak in once more, sending her shivering again.

He wavered but eventually nodded. “Very well.”

Around them, the clamor grew as the countdown began.

They lingered side by side, as if unable to break the gravitational pull. Unwilling to part.

Genesis glanced up and caught his gaze, just as he looked down. She blinked, wondering why she hadn’t noticed his eyes before. They were tired but warm, and something promised a purity that she’d lost long ago. Something she was afraid to touch. She felt frozen as he took her hand in his gloved one and pressed the lightest kiss to her knuckles. “Happy New Year,” her silver-haired stranger said gently.

“No proper kiss?” Genesis asked with a coy smile, her voice unsteady.

His lips quirked slightly, maybe a smile. “I would not dare to presume.”

She’d gone from having an aversion for the guy, to wanting to protect him from the rest of the world. He had a kind of innocence that she both hated and envied. His old-fashioned chivalry had charmed her and thawed a little of the frozen lump she called a heart.

She lingered outside a little longer just to watch him walk away, the colours and fleeting lights of Loveless Avenue shimmering in his swaying ponytail.

She was halfway inside the coffee shop before she realized she hadn’t gotten his name.

“ _Fuck!_ ”

**Author's Note:**

> The rest of this is currently in development, just wanted to get this out in time for New Year’s. There’s little doubt this next year will be better than 2020. Have a happy New Year's Eve, stay safe and have fun!


End file.
